Every school should have a "useless teacher" so children can learn
to deal with incompetent people in authority, the outgoing chairman of the
Office for Standards in Education (Ofsted) has claimed.

In comments that have been criticised as "mad" and "ludicrous", Zenna Atkins said primary schools in particularly needed to have "one pretty naff teacher" so youngsters could learn how to "play" authority.

She made her thoughts known less than a week after the General Teaching Council disclosed that it had struck off only 18 teachers for incompetence in the last decade. In 2008 the body said there could be up to 17,000 "substandard" teachers.

Ms Atkins argued that poor teachers should not be sacked, as schools "need to reflect society".

She told The Sunday Times: "It's about learning how to identify good role models. One really good thing about primary school is that every kid learns how to deal with a really ---- teacher."

She continued: "I would not remove every single useless teacher because every grown-up in a workplace needs to learn to deal with the moron who sits four desks down without lamping them and to deal with authority that's useless.

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"I'd like to keep the number low, but if every primary school has one pretty naff teacher, this helps kids realise that even if you know the quality of authority is not good, you have to learn how to play it."

Ms Atkins, who is to leave Ofsted at the end of August to become chief executive of the British arm of GEMS Education, an independent schools chain, stressed she was speaking in a personal capacity.

But education experts have rounded on her comments.

Chris Woodhead, the former chief inspector of schools, said: "The woman must be mad. I can't think of a comment more likely to discredit Ofsted or more likely to further damage our children's education."

Weeding out poor teachers was a critical way of improving education standards, he added.

Alan Smithers, professor of education at Buckingham University, said: "I very much hope she is deliberately trying to be provocative to engender some discussion of the quality of teaching and how to get rid of incompetent teachers.

"But if she really believes what she is saying, it is frankly ludicrous. It does not sound like she is a fit person to have been the chair of Ofsted."

Prof Smithers said he completely disagreed with her logic that young children could learn important life lessons from poor teachers.

"Primary school is about trying to learn – to read, write, add up and behave. To do that you need high quality teachers," he said.

"When you are seven, you don't want to learn how to deal with someone who is incompetent."

Ms Atkins, who describes herself as a "social entrepreneur", has chaired Ofsted since September 2006.

She announced her departure two weeks ago, at the same time as Christine Gilbert, the chief inspector of schools, said she was going.

They were both seen as Tony Blair appointees close to the previous Labour administration.

Ms Gilbert, the wife of former Labour minister Tony McNulty, was pressurised to leave by Michael Gove, the Education Secretary, who said she should go "sooner rather than later".